Board Grants Parole To `Murph The Surf`

Jack ``Murph the Surf`` Murphy was granted parole Wednesday, almost 19 years after he was sentenced to life in prison for killing a secretary and dumping her body in Hollywood`s Whiskey Creek.

The Florida Parole and Probation Commission voted 5-2 to parole the infamous jewel thief and murderer, now a born-again Christian and lay minister in Orlando, a commission spokesman said. His parole is effective Nov. 11.

One condition of parole, requested by the father of the murdered woman, is that Murphy pay $2,500 in $100 monthly installments to the Meals on Wheels for the Aged Shut-Ins, a private group based in Hallandale.

Lewis Kent of Cincinnati said he learned about the feeding program last year when a flier advertising it was slipped under the door of the rented Hallandale condominium where he was spending the winter.

``I think it`s a fine program. I`m glad that was made a condition of his parole,`` said Kent, 76, the father of Terry Rae Kent Frank.

``What does money have to do with life? I`ll never see any of that money. Blood money -- I couldn`t touch it.``

Murphy, 48, is at ``The Bridge,`` a halfway house in Orlando run by Christian Prison Ministries, and reportedly plans to continue working there as a staff member and counselor.

A secretary at the ministry said she believed Murphy had heard about his parole, but he was not in the office.

Since 1969, Murphy has been in prison for the murder of Frank, a Los Angeles secretary who helped him steal $400,000 in securities from the firm where she worked. Murphy and another man, Jack Griffith, shot, bludgeoned and stabbed Frank and her co-worker, Annelie Marie Mohn, 21, and dumped their bodies, tied to concrete blocks, in Whiskey Creek off the Intracoastal Waterway.

Charges for Mohn`s murder were not pressed. Griffith is serving a 45-year sentence and not eligible for parole until 1991.

A champion surfer and playboy beach bum before he turned to crime, Murphy also was under a 20-year sentence for the attempted robbery and burglary of a Miami Beach socialite in 1968.

He was better known, though, for his part in the 1964 theft of the Star of India sapphire and other jewels from the Museum of Natural History in New York, a crime that sent him to prison for 21 months and inspired a movie, Murph the Surf.

He got out of a Florida prison and was sent to a work-release program in 1984. Since Murphy became eligible for parole earlier this year, commission spokeswoman Ruth Anne Reese said, the commission has gotten ``hundreds of letters`` supporting his parole.

In July, the commission denied Murphy early parole and ordered a psychiatric report on him.

The commissioners who voted Wednesday against parole, Charles Scriven and Judith Woolson, said they did so because they felt Murphy could be a risk to society, Reese said.

No one spoke against parole Wednesday and only the Rev. Frank Constantino, head of the prison ministry and a friend of Murphy, spoke for him.

``(Constantino) has been here over the years every time the case has been heard,`` said Reese. ``Today he said he was just going to reiterate what he had said in the past, that he would urge the commission to grant parole, that inmate Murphy had continued to work in his Christian Prison Ministries and that he was doing a good job.``

Another condition of Murphy`s parole is that he may not travel to Broward or Dade counties -- the sites of his crimes -- without permission from the parole commission. His parole examiner may okay travel anywhere else.

In Hallandale, a member of the Meals on Wheels group said she was thrilled to hear of the donation. She said its 22 members knew a gift was coming but didn`t know from whom.

Mildred Burman, who runs the program, said, ``$2,500 -- geez, that`ll feed so many people. But I`m sorry that it had to come through the death of someone.``

Each meal to feed the elderly, poor and recently hospitalized people costs $2.90 to $3.25, she said.

Kent, a retired optometrist, said he wanted Murphy to serve a full life sentence. He was not happy about the parole, but neither was he angry.

``In a few years, he`ll be back (in prison) again. He`ll get what he deserves,`` Kent predicted.